What's Goin' On

I've been thinking about blogging for a while, I just haven't taken the time to do it. Mostly I've been doing photo stuff, or I've been reading, so I just hadn't had the blog on the top of my priority list.

One thing I have been wanting to blog about is the fact that I am back at all elementary schools in my job. (The last 2 school years I have been at 1 elementary and a middle school.) I wanted to try out middle school to see what it was like. The first year was good. I did more counseling (it's mostly testing and problem-solving for interventions in elementary) and I liked the kids I saw. But the second year was a little more stressful and the kids I had to counsel weren't as receptive. I decided I am more comfortable and skilled with the problems of elementary school, rather than the issues of middle school. So, even though I'm REALLY busy at both elementary schools, I am enjoying work so much more! I hate to say it, but it got to where I was really dreading going in those days last year. The best thing about it was that I got to go in an hour later. Of course, I had to stay an hour later, too, so that part wasn't as fun. Bottom line: work is going well.

I can't believe it's already Christmas again. I hate to sound old, but time really does go by faster the older you get. But, this was the first year that I was not in Idlewild's Christmas presentations since I started singing in them in 1988. Last year I was still in it, even though we had already started going to Grace. I welcomed the extra time this year, but the presentation had a story line, which are my favorite kind. We went to see it last week, and I have to admit, I teared up a bit a couple of times, just from the nostalgia, and that initial feeling of "I should be up there." It was so great to see people, including some that are back after having been gone for years. It was a fun night.

Christmas came early for the Johnsons this year. I decided that I really wanted a DSLR camera, so Jason decided that we should get it before Thanksgiving. (He said this was so I would know how to use it by Christmas, when I would want to get good pictures.) I got a Canon Rebel T1. I also was able to get the newest version of Photoshop, so I was very excited. (Since I work for the school system, I was eligible to get the student/teacher version for much cheaper.) So, now I will be able to do some awesome scrapbook layouts of some great photographs taken with my wonderful camera. Yay!

I'm just going to say, I am loving the cold weather we are having right now. I honestly can't remember it ever getting into the 30s this often, before Christmas. Yeah, January and February it does, but the beginning and middle of December? I just wish I was already on break so I didn't have to get up and out in it. I wonder if this winter is going to be another extreme one like last winter was. I hope so, it's fun.

Pictures

Last post I said I would put up pictures of Desmond playing with my uncle's dog when I visited my grandparents. So here they are.

I think they had a good time. I had to put Desmond in his crate, though, because he wanted to continually play with Rusty, even though they were both tired.

I'll have to take him up there again some time. He needs to socialize with other dogs more.

We have been taking him to a training class at PetSmart. He is a stinker, though. He learns pretty quickly once he realizes he's getting a treat for it. But, boy, is he talkative. He comes in the store yelping so loudly. The other day one of our classmates said she knew that was us. How embarrassing. But I guess it's a schnauzer thing. Gotta love them.

Last post I also was hoping that Amy would make it for a visit, which she did, even though it was so short. They got on a plane in Germany last Saturday and flew to an air force base in Mass, then drove 20 minutes to a Connecticut airport to fly to Tampa. So they got here on Sunday. I saw them Sunday and Monday evening, then they flew to Texas for the wedding that Ben and Jordan are in. At least I got to see them for a little bit. I had said I wanted to be able to see Ava one more time before she turned 1, so I got to do that. I got some good pictures, though, which was good.

First me and my sister.

Then my niece, Jordan. What a little "poser."

Then this picture of Ava. SO cute!

My parents with their grandchildren. All of them are so cute.

Then just my nephews and nieces. Love this picture. Don't know the next time they'll all be together :(

The next day, Jason was with me, so I got this picture of him reading to Jordan. It was so cute, he was reading the wrong words on purpose, and she was laughing and correcting him. (She starts kindergarten this year, so she's more advanced than a lot of the kindergarteners I see in my schools.)

 

Lazy Days of Summer

Well, my summer is over, as of tomorrow. They go by so quickly now that I'm an adult. I'm not surprised. I knew going into it that it would be over before I knew it. Although, I have to say, in some ways it does seem like a long time. I was off for just under 8 weeks, and, yes, I know that most people only get 2 to 5 weeks off. And my husband always reminds me that I also get 2 weeks at Christmas, a week of spring break, a week (since this last year) at Thanksgiving, and a few single days in between.

I didn't do a ton of things this summer, but I really enjoyed it. We did go to Memphis for my family reunion on my mom's side. It was fun to see my cousin who I hadn't seen since high school. I also met her daughter and niece, who I had never met before. Jason and my dad played pool most of the time. My grandparents' farm is really nice. We were just there for the weekend, but it was relaxing. We went to Graceland when we flew in, which was interesting. I've been to Memphis many times, but I had never gone to Graceland, so I figured I might as well. First of all, the house was not nearly as big as I would imagine (by today's standards). Then, it was kind of weird to walk in there and see things the way they were back in the 70s when he died. I mean, I know that they wouldn't change it, but it just felt really weird to be in there. The decorations were very tacky, but at the same time, it was kind of cool to see. It was weird to see gift shops coming out of all the exhibits. It felt like being at a theme park. I wonder what Elvis would have thought if he had known his home (technically the gift shops were all across the street, but still) would be turned into that.

Jason had the rest of that week off, so we hung out at home, then went to Orlando for a few days. We didn't do Disney, but we did go to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Sea World. It was so nice. We also got a good deal on a hotel room, so that made it even better. I definitely miss when we had our Disney passes and went over there all the time. Maybe one day we'll be able to do that again, but it doesn't seem to be in our near future.

I read a lot over the summer. If you haven't heard of the website goodreads.com, and you enjoy reading, you should check it out. It's a good way to find new books to read. You can also write reviews on books you've read, but I haven't done that too much yet. I think I'm too afraid that people will be critical of what I say. Yes, I'm that sensitive and care what people think of me. Maybe I'll get over it some day.

Of course, I also scrapbooked. I really worked a lot on my honeymoon album, that I tried to start last summer, but I wasn't as good at it then. I got a good amount done, and I feel like I've learned a lot about it at the same time.

I got together with a couple of good friends that I don't see that much anymore. I had a great time with both of them. It's cool how you can pick up where you left off. Of course, I wish that I did still see them, but going to different churches now and busy lives equals not much time for getting together.

I went to see my grandparents like I usually try to do. I brought Desmond with me, at my grandmother's request, so he could play with my uncle's dog, Rusty. More on this later, cause I want to post pictures, but I haven't taken them off my camera yet.

The one disappointment of the summer, was that I was hoping that my sister and the girls would get to visit from Germany. Because she's flying on a military plane, space available, she basically was on stand-by every day. She went to the airport for 12 days, with the girls, only to find out that she was not getting on the plane. I had no idea that it would be that unlikely for her to go, so I had expected to hang out with her for the last couple of weeks. Now, I'm hoping that she'll at least make it over with Ben and Jordan (they're flying to Texas for a wedding) for a couple of days so that I can at least see Ava one more time before she turns 1.

So all in all, it was a nice summer, even though not really exciting. Kind of lazy, but I need that sometimes. Especially since now that work is starting, there's no more time for laziness.

Monthly Challenges

In addition to participating in the Project Scrap Girls challenge, I also try to participate in Scrap Girls' monthly challenges, where they pick a different theme to scrap about. Note--I did participate in January's challenge, but I will post that later. February's challenge was to scrap about family. I really liked this quote that I had found by Gail Lumet Buckley, "Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future." I decided to use pictures of me and Jason from when we were younger, along with pictures of our parents from around that same time. Then I used a picture of me and Jason from when we were engaged. I used Brandy Murry's Background Blenders for the layout design. That's what made all of the photo masks. I altered it a little, since there are 9 photo masks, set up like The Brady Bunch. If I had a child, I would have done a solo picture of Jason, me, and our child, but I guess that can be a future layout. The background paper is actually a combination of 2 from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat. All of the embellishments also are from that collection. 

March's challenge was to scrap about a smile. My nephew, Kyle, had just lost his front tooth, so I thought that it would make an adorable layout. The polaroid template is from Brandy Hackman's Write It Down. The background paper is from Brandy Murry's The Bees Knees collection. The journaling tag and cut papers are from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy (the Assemble Your Own Zoom Page) collection. The letters that spell out "smile" is from her Watercolor Whimsy collection. The handwritten "Your Smile" is from Brandy Murry's By Hand word art, and the buttons are from Amanda McGee's Applique Flowers emellishment template.

For April's challenge, they said to scrap about silly pictures or antics. Well, I had already planned to one day do a layout featuring the MANY pictures I have where Jason is being goofy, making a silly face, etc. I figured this template by Syndee Nuckles was perfect for a lot of pictures like that. It's from the Quick Collage collection. All of the papers are from Chere Edwards' Bliss collection. The circle tag and bow also are from this collection. The word art "a playful expression" is from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy (Assemble Your Own Zoom Page).

Project Scrap Girls (March)

This was the first layout I posted for the 2010 Project Scrap Girls challenge. This was the first time I extracted a photo, and I really liked how it turned out. The pictures were from one day when we were at my in-laws' house, and my husband was playing with his nephew. You can tell how excited he was, just clapping Jason's hands while he would say "Boom. Boom." I really like using the film strip for similar pictures like I had, then for the one I caught of him looking right at the camera, I enlarged it and extracted. The film strip template is by Sarah Batdorf. The background papers and the template to blend them together are by Brandy Murry (The Bees Knees collection and Background Blenders II). The "March" letters are by Amanda Sok from her Watercolor Whimsy (this is the same for all of the March layouts).

My second layout, from my nephew's birthday party. For the red background paper I used a paper template from the Panagea collection by Durin Eberhart. The red and yellow paper also was a paper template from the Appassionata collection by Amanda Sok. The layout of the photos was from Caroline Kaiser's Squares and Strips collection. The letters for "4th" are from Trish Yocum's Mosaic Retreat collection. The other font is Glitter Font that I got from a website, but I don't remember where.

This layout was commemorating my birthday, even though it was a very low-key day. I didn't have a picture of me from that day, so I just took one of myself when I was doing this layout. It wasn't that great, but I wanted to try out this new action that I had bought from the site. An action is basically a bunch of steps that are saved together so that you don't have to remember all the steps. You can buy the actions to load into Photoshop. Originally, I hadn't wanted to buy anything that I would be able to do myself. However, I really don't know that much about the settings for certain things I am doing (like blurs or filters or things), so when someone has already figured it out for you, and it only costs a few bucks, then yeah, I'll buy it. So this was a sketching action, which just turns your picture into a sketch. But the settings include the color as you see. (It's from Brandy Murry's Sketch It 2). The paper and flowers were from Brandy Murry's The Bees Knees (I recolored the paper). The frame is from her The Bees KneesAssemble Your Own Zoom Page (also recolored). The ribbons are from her Wrapped Frames collection. The 37 is from her Nuptials collection. (If you couldn't tell, Brandy Murry is one of my favorite designers. Love her designs!) This layout also was the second one of mine that has won as a weekly layout winner in the Scrap Girls newsletter. Again, I was surprised, but excited.

Lots of birthdays in March for my family. This layout is about my niece's birthday. She lives in Germany, so we didn't get to celebrate it with her, but my sister sent me pictures. The background paper is from Trish Yocum's Mosaic Retreat collection (recolored). The layout template was from Caroline Kaiser's Squares and Strips. The other papers, the little flower in the frame, and the "5th" is from Amanda McGee's Gleeful collection. For the other font I used a glitter style by Cheryl Barber.

In January and February I did a good job of getting my 4 layouts posted on the site by the end of the month. But I got behind in March, mostly because all of my events were from the 20th and after. Then, I was waiting for my sister to send me the pictures of my niece, so the last layout wasn't done until April. Then I've been stuck on one April layout, so I am really behind now. Oh well. I definitely want to stick with it, because it will be nice to have a completed album for 2010 (whenever I choose to print it).

Project Scrap Girls (February layouts)

For the Scrap Girls year-long project, here are my four February layouts. The first one, Zoo Day, is from the day that I went to Lowry Park Zoo with my sister, Amy, and her girls, who were visiting from Germany. I used a layout template by Angie Briggs and paper and embellishments from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat collection. For all of the layouts, the February tag is by Amanda Sok, I just recolored it to match my layouts. I was excited to see this first layout was picked as a weekly layout winner in the Scrap Girls newsletter. This was the first time that's happened, so it was really cool.

The second layout is about seeing Wicked with Jason and our parents. We got them the tickets for their Christmas gifts this year. Our moms were so excited to go! The layout template is by Brandy Hackman. The background paper also was a template, by Brandie Valenzuela.

The third layout is from my first time singing on Saturdays at Grace Family Church. I felt silly having Jason take pictures during the rehearsal, but I wasn't sure if I'd be singing again (I have been pretty regularly) and I wanted to scrap it. I didn't have great quality pictures, but I didn't care. The layout template is by Syndee Nuckles. The background paper and alphabet is from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat collection. The small paper is from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy collection. The music embellishments are from Amanda Sok's Appassionata collection.

The fourth layout is a collage of pictures from the last few days that Amy and the girls were here. The collage letters were made by Syndee Nuckles. The papers and other embellishments were from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat collection.

This has been a fun project to participate in so far. I've been feeling pretty confident with my growing skills. Lately, though, I've felt a little more unsure of what I want to do. But I'm just sticking with it and not putting a lot of pressure on myself. I will say that I think having a creative outlet is helping to keep my stress levels down at work, so that's good. I'll post some other non-Project Scrap Girls layouts soon.

Project Scrap Girls (February)